Rossiter: The world at your fingertips

Posted: Saturday, April 26, 2008

Erin

Rossiter

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A spin of the globe is all it once took for a travel idea.

In fits of frustration, the world could turn and turn on its metal axis, allowing a child, mid-tantrum, the chance to put her finger down, stop the whirl, and calmly plan an escape - from punishment, fights with friends, homework, whatever.

The place my index finger first landed: Maine.

East Coast home of the fictional Cabot Cove, setting for "Murder, She Wrote." Fresh lobster, the kind eaters have to break into with crackers. And, best of all, snow. All told, Maine seemed perfect to a hot-tempered kid dripping with 100 percent Miami humidity.

But where in the state would a runaway settle?

Twenty years ago, the question required flipping the pages of an atlas. Mine was oversized, making the name of the small town even bigger - Cherryfield, the "blueberry capital of the world."

Fruitful for me, too, I just knew.

But my obsessions at age 12 were fleeting. Cherryfield lasted about a day. Globe talk is what returned the location to mind. Turns out a lot of people remember spinning and stopping model earths with their index fingers.

The predictable thesis: Kids today have so much more at hand. So do adults. With just a few button clicks, I found all the census and crime stats related to Cherryfield. Population: 1,157 in 2000. Median combined income: $24,593. Average age of residents: 44. Number of sex offenders living there: 2.

The biting flies are bad, too, like the winter.

But there are trade-offs, like the "spectacular" fall. So reports Kathy Winham, co-owner of Cherryfield's Englishman's Bed and Breakfast with her husband, Peter. (Their telephone number was online, too.)

The archaeologists arrived to Cherryfield in 2004 after a similar computer search of Maine and its "Downeast" cities, located on the state's northernmost ocean coast.

Its affordable real estate called to them. Plus, Winham remembered Maine from her childhood, too. Failing to find jobs in their field of archaeology, Peter suggested they open a bed and breakfast like those in his native country, Great Britain.

"I took the ball and ran with it," Kathy Winham said. They found a "big old" home in Cherryfield, the town founded by Ichabod Willey and Samuel Colson in 1757.

Guess who most of the Winhams' guests are? People who're looking to move to Maine.

"You mustn't think of our coast line like Cape Cod or New Jersey," she said. "There are still a lot of wilder areas, non-commercial. Condos are not normal up here. It is much more peaceful. You can get your piece of heaven here, if you don't mind the winter."

Sometimes brutal but homey is how she described life in Maine when temperatures drop steeper than snow.

Being outdoors during the "summer" months, June to mid-September, is the reward to seemingly endless days of baking, reading and home entertaining during any of the other months. Festivals are planned most weekends there is warmth, the kind that rarely ever spikes higher than 80 degrees.

"The real locals, they just enjoy being outdoors, even chopping wood around here, any excuse to be outside," she said. "It's kind of a simple life ... Perhaps it appeals more to people over 40."

Maybe so, in residence. But a 12-year-old with a globe, turned 33-year-old with the World Wide Web still enjoyed the connection to a childhood dream.

"It is a real getaway from the rest of the world, I can tell you that," Winham said.

 Erin Rossiter is a staff writer for the Athens Banner-Herald and can be reached at erin.rossiter@onlineathens.com.